Tuesday, January 20, 2009
LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING
The Negro National Anthem
"Lift Every Voice and Sing"
by James Weldon Johnson
Originally written by Johnson for a presentation in celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. This was originally performed in Jacksonville, Florida, by children. The popular title for this work is:
'THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM'
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land James Weldon Johnson June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938
Timeline
1871 Born in Jacksonville, Florida, June 17
1894 Graduated from Atlanta University
1897 First black admitted to Florida bar
1899 Wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing" with his brother
1906 US consul, Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
1909 US consul, Corinto, Nicaragua
1920 Appointed executive secretary of NAACP
1921 Wrote first novel: "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man"
1922 Collected poems of black poets in "The Book of American Negro Poetry."
1927 With brother Rosamond, published "God's Trombones"
1930 Became professor at Fisk University
1933 Wrote autobiography, "Along This Way"
1938 Died in automobile accident in Maine
source: africanamerican.com
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MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK
...My Lambo's blue...
The wait is over y'all. Our ship has come in. It's a done deal. Now what? Well, for those of us who voted for Obama because he's black, I have good news! He'll still be black four to eight years from now. For those of you who voted for the man because you believe he can fix the economy and the quagmire in the Middle East (and he did claim he could), I have bad news. Not even a consortium featuring the likes of Harry Houdini, David Blaine, David Copperfield and the Amazing Kreskin can fix this economy and bring peace to the Middle East. Y'all gon' stay disappointed. Barack will attack the economic downturn and the Middle East crisis like all Presidents have and will. Nothing to report here.
So what should we (the whole wide world) expect to harvest from this Obama presidency? I say brainpower. As a black man of 43 years I'm old enough to grasp the concept of the "lost generation". Witnessing Obama's ascendency has undoubtedly left an impression on even the most downtrodden of we, but what will become of it? Instead of pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams of an Obama presidency that cures all economic and geopolitical ills, let's ignore politics and look at this thing from its most rudimentary level. How can an Obama presidency enable Black Americans to corral those of the lost generation, bring them back into the fold and encourage them to reach their potential? Y'all know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the prisoners, the deadbeat dads, the teenage babymamma baby making machines, the 40 ounce bottle of Malt Liquor club, the crackheads, the High School dropouts, the armed robbers, burglars, carjackers and rapists, the cheese-eating uncle toms and thomasina's (dang, it sounds like we're more than just the white man's burden) and those like me who don't necessarily fall into any of the aforementioned categories but who squandered opportunity after opportunity to really maximize their God-given abilities. There's enough brainpower there to cure cancer in a month. It's not too late for us to regain that wasted potential.
We've got the next four years to right the ship. Our ancestors introduced the world to religion, ALL the sciences, monotheism, family life, etc. The list of inventions by Black inventors is mind-boggling. They still haven't figured out how we built the pyramids. I could go on and on. We have the potential, we have the aptitude and we have a shining star as an example of what we can achieve outside the realm of sports and entertainment. So let's stop praying for Barack to whip out a magic wand and let's embrace the idea that 'Yes We Can' become Kings and Queens again. All of we.
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